[First paragraph...]
Peer review is the main quality control process in science. Most would agree that the subjection of scientific discoveries to the scrutiny of expert scientists results in higher quality and more reliable scientific outcomes. Recently, several opinion pieces have drawn attention to a crisis in the peer-review system in ecology (e.g. Hochberg et al. 2009; Donaldson et al. 2010). A key problem is the trouble editors have in finding suitable reviewers to assess manuscripts. This causes delays in the time taken for a decision on manuscripts and forces editors to fall back on an often time-limited coterie of regular reviewers, which results in reviewer fatigue and further exacerbates the problem (Hochberg et al. 2009).